Brown Hill Development intends to create a rarity in Old City — a high-rise building. Brown Hill plans to construct a 197 foot tall mixed-use building at 205 Race Street. The project will include a mix of apartment units and ground floor retail. The new zoning code allows Brown Hill to proceed with the project without a variance thereby enabling it to potentially side-step opposition from Old City’s notoriously anti-development neighborhood groups.

Amid signs that the multi-family housing market may be cooling, Philadelphia’s Equus Capital Partners scrapped its plans to build a 300 unit apartment building on West Elm Street in Conshohocken. Instead, Equus announced plans to convert the 20 acre site into a seven-story 320,000 square foot office building. Wulff Architects designed the project to include large (45,000 square foot) floor plates and other amenities such as exercise facilities, dining areas, and common areas increasingly sought by office tenants.

Co-working may be the fastest growing rage in the Philadelphia-area office markets. Co-working spaces are designed for many small businesses to work in close proximity to one another in a shared-office environment to enable collaboration. Piggy-backing on the initial success of such area co-working stalwarts such as Benjamin’s Desk, IndyHall, and CityCoho, Miami-based Pipeline recently leased 21,000 square feet at the Graham Building at 15th and Chestnut Streets in Center City for its first Philadelphia co-working space. Pipeline, like its competitors, aims to cater to start-ups and sole proprietors.